Vehicles

We talked about how Power Weapons can be used to create depth in
your map by leading or forcing players to make decisions unrelated to
the Game Play and its primary objective. I want to now talk about how we
can do the same with vehicles. We already discussed how vehicles can be
used to offer players additional ways to travel and engage their
adversaries. Let’s look at the depth to your map that vehicles tend to
offer.

Remember that depth is introduced when players are confronted with
decisions to focus on objectives like Power Weapons instead of the
primary objective of the game, and for the purpose of gaining advantages
over their adversaries. Like Power Weapons, the more powerful the
vehicle, the more important it becomes to winning the match.

Forging a Scorpion, a Wraith, or a Mantis can lead a player to make
the decision should they jump in the vehicle and remain back, should
they push forward, or should they not even bother with the vehicle at
all? And if the vehicle is a very powerful weapon system with no real
threat save the laser (as in Halo 3 Sand Trap or Valhalla), then the
value of acquiring the vehicle becomes enormous (particularly the
Scorpion). This last part in turn makes jacking the enemy Scorpion,
Wraith, or Mantis all that much more valuable. From this value the meta
game of jacking the enemy vehicle becomes a priority amongst a good
segment of the population.

For me there was never any more satisfaction of jacking the enemy
Banshee and successfully flying off with it on Valhala, the Scorpion on
Valhala Heavy or Sand Trap Heavy, or the Gausshog or Banshee on Standoff
Heavy. Those were the ultimate statement of dominance over my enemy –
that I could slip in behind their lines and take a very important
commodity from under their noses and turn it on them. And honestly even
if they stopped me cold in my tracks, there was still an enormous
satisfaction of having denied them their prize. I valued the success of
this meta game way more than whether we won the game itself, because of
the personal challenge it presented to me to do the unusual, the
unexpected, the ultimate in surprise. The depth that this type of meta
game offered was enormous.

Summary

Vehicles can offer Meta for your map just as Power Weapons can.

If both teams have the same vehicles, then jacking the enemy’s
vehicles and denying them an equal advantage becomes a sport in and of
itself.

The more powerful the vehicle, the more incentive there is to acquire the vehicle, or at least denying the enemy the same.